Installing a bower package: "no-json No bower.json file to save to"

Question

I've added a bower package into my project root. I'm using bower so it's easier to manage the updates for each component (one of bower's features). However I got this message after install:

no-json No bower.json file to save to

A few things:

— There is in fact a bower.json file w/i the component's folder. Should there be a global project bower.json file?

— Will this error mean the package will not update?

— The project is a WordPress project using the "WordPress-Starter-Theme" (which uses grunt to handle compass, etc). Is grunt interfering? Do I need to add anything into Gruntfile.js to manage Bower?

Thanks in advance.

Ellette

Answer 1

You can run

bower init

to create the json file in the current directory.

Docs

Changchangaris

Hello from the Future. In VS2017, where can I run this command? I started with an empty project template for asp.net core to get familiar with some of the stuff VS bundles with the mvc template. – Wayless

@Zack, open up a command window in the same folder that has your *.csproj file. – Helton

@Wayless under Visual Studio 2017 you need to do these steps 1. open a command prompt 2. cd to the project directory 3. run this command "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Web\External\Bower.cmd" init – Aquarium

Thanks :) just added the directory to my environment path. – Wayless

Answer 2

If you're using Visual Studio (2017) you can simply do:

• Add New Item (On the project)
• Choose: Web -> General -> Bower Configuration File

This will not only add a bower.json file, but also the .bowerrc file. Without the .bowerrc file the packages won't be copied from the hidden 'bower_components' folder to the wwwroot/lib folder.

Buffet

Thank you! Helped me a lot. Microsoft doc is missing this step. – Inlaw

Answer 3

The bower.json file should always be in the root of your project folder. Furthermore, the file shouldn't be within the bower_components folder, because bower is responsible for creating this folder itself.

The error means that if you run bower install --save, the dependencies won't be recorded in your bower.json. This is a bad idea, because you lose the big benefit a package manager provides.

Grunt and Bower work completely independent from one-another, you don't have to change anything regarding your Grunt setup to use grunt.

Pridgen

Answer 4

you installed on root means WP roots as you mentioned that you are trying to use Bower for your wordpress theme. So just create .bowerrc file in wordpress root and write the following code in .bowerrc file.

{
    "directory": "wp-content/themes/yourthemefolder/ui-libraries"
}

and now create bower.json also in your root and as usual write down all the dependency names there. You can read more details from Bower configuration overriding with .bowerrc

Let me know if that helps.

Insomuch

Answer 5

If you install node via package manager with sudo apt-get install nodejs you'll also need to install nodejs-legacy with sudo apt-get install nodejs-legacy for generating bower.json in root directory

rails g bower_rails:initialize json

and for bowerfile

rails g bower_rails:initialize

Psychognosis

Answer 6

Be sure to remove unnecessary white-spaces or extra line breaks to avoid getting the error "Neither bower.json nor component.json present"

Also as mentioned above, be sure to run bower install, or bower-installer command in the directory where your bower.json file is located.

Works for both bower and bower-installer

Skywriting

Answer 7

I figured out that what was causing the error is installing the component in the wrong directory. Just make sure the file path in the command line points to the respective directory.In my case C:\Users\Nick\Documents\myprojectfolder>..commands..

Hilburn

Answer 8

In Visual Studio 2017 you need to do this

1. open a command prompt
2. cd to the project directory
3. run this command "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Community\Web\External\Bower.cmd" init

Aquarium

Answer 9

I resolved this issue with:

npm install -g bower

Clearcole